avatar guidelines?

[fishface5]

I know one of the BFC rules is that images should be "work-safe," but where does that leave questionable avatars? In particular images that one group or another might find deeply offensive (KKK, swastikas, someone setting fire to the US flag, etc). On the one hand no one expects BFC to be a nanny state making sure that nobody's feelings could get hurt. On the other hand those sorts of images can be very disruptive to the great community that BFC has built. Thanks for any clarification.

 

[Planterz]

Why do you ask? Are you planning on using a potentially offensive avatar? Is there someone else's avatar that you find offensive?

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Hypotheticals like that are extremely difficult to answer. Avoid politics and pornography, for a start. Is there anything in particular you were considering?

 

[fishface5]

someone has an avatar that I thought was a nazi swastika -- but they have since clarified that for them it's actually an asian symbol of spirituality

 

[Cougar Allen]

The Nazi swastika looks like this.

Nazi swastika

Anything else is not a Nazi swastika. Just like the American flag is a particular arrangement of particular numbers of stars and stripes in particular colors, and anything else is not an American flag. Many other flags and insignia have stars, stripes, and/or swastikas, but they're different.

This, for instance, is an insignia currently used by the Air Force of Finland.